Going Too Far (7 page)

But one thing has not changed, the seed of my salvation years ago and the flowering of my pride tonight. I know that you are a great writer.

R.

5

The phrase “We have a conflict of life-styles here” and, indeed, this entire letter could serve as a classic example of the confused search of a woman, in pre-feminist consciousness, to find a personal solution for those problems she thinks of as uniquely her own. The pain is not yet recognized as being
political;
it is felt as individual,
her
problem,
her
fault. Guilt, self-contempt, and feelings of unworthiness—all inevitable responses of the depressed oppressed person—are stunningly manifest in the accompanying Various Failures of Me list. This was written, of course, before most women, myself included, knew that the vaginal orgasm was a myth, that housecleaning and cooking standards did not after all have to bear a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, and that being a size five (while standing almost six feet tall) did not necessarily constitute being beautiful. The self-loathing so evident here was at its peak during the very periods when I thoroughly cleaned house twice a week, baked quiche Lorraine and whipped up soufflés, and also dieted furiously—none of which made any difference to my self-hatred. Something else would be needed to give me glimpses into my own real worth. Something else would be needed to give me the tools by which to struggle with the man I loved.

1
July
1966, 1:00
a.m
.

D
EAR
K.:

I've just reread the previous letters and noted, with interest, that it has been almost a year now since I've written another. I do so tonight out of a very different spirit than that which prompted the others. Again, you are out, gone on a summer walk and to get something to eat and read the
Times
, because you are angry and depressed and want to get away from me. Fine. There's a peace in the house at the moment because only one depressed and angry person is here—not two, competing in their misery.

And quite a year has passed. Sally dead; three months of my
intensely renewed existential duel with that death, any death; your revising and typing of your novel; your second book of poems sold; the big party in celebration; our redoing the bedroom and painting the downstairs and putting finishing touches on the apartment; our month-long joint poetry-reading tour; and our return—to this.

And now all at once it seems that the weaknesses in our personalities and our relationship appear more exposed than ever before. No one thing new, all problems we know and have talked about and worked on and even joked about. But not now, not this time, not with this sudden weariness and hopelessness we both seem to feel on being confronted with them. Last night we had the long talk I had so longed for and then begun not to care about, after almost two months of being dazed, rather than depressed, and quite depersonalized about my immense failings. We hadn't talked earlier because of the exhaustion of the trip; then your fall from the library-ladder and the pain-killing drugs which put you out for weeks, it seemed; then because it appeared to be too late to talk. But it wasn't. Or was it? Because we didn't “solve” or really get to a damned thing. We sort of faked a solution, a communication, an understanding, but we have after all had the real thing in the past with each other, and we both know the difference. And now, tonight, your inevitable delayed reaction has set in, further prompted by what I meant to be a short, casual, practical talk about money affairs earlier today.

My, but you plummeted quickly. A bad headache, a sick feeling, a hostile depression, total noncommunication. I went and did errands, housework, felt that I had (for the first time in days) accomplished something practical, felt refreshed by the manual labor, returned to find you worse. Sleeping on the floor in the study, huddled by the air conditioner, a reproach (or so I take it) that I have not managed the money well, haven't saved enough for the bedroom air conditioner we had planned. And you're right, too. Oh, always right. That supposedly is what we talked about last night. Various failures of Robin Morgan, listed on the attached sheet which I made up for my own sick amusement. You had reassured me, oh, yes, and explained that you criticize only to urge further improvement on my already astounding successes. Then today you went and huddled by the air conditioner. Today you looked at me out of eyes that, far back, said “You are destroying me.” Now just where does my guilt come from? Yes, yes, we know I have a pattern of it from having lived with my mother, we know I have (your words) an acute “critical faculty” where my work and my life are concerned, but does no one encourage this? Does no one play into it? I asked if I could get you anything, help somehow, cook something, or should we take a walk together. You went out alone. Ah, does no one play into it?

Well, and are
you
destroying
me?
More, that is, than any person living with another does, than any human being inevitably tries to do to another. You try not to, God knows, I try not to, we talk about it sensibly all the time. We are aware, perceptive, articulate. And if I make you pay for my guilt, don't you perpetuate the cycle with more criticism? I don't mean ordinary criticism, I mean the myriad tiny reproaches every day, said and glanced and subtly communicated.

Something, at any rate, has gone wrong. How irreparably? I don't know. I do know that for some weeks now we have not been really sexually attracted to each other. Sex has been mechanical. I half-dread it, half-hope for it on the chance that this time things will really come off successfully. Nobody's really getting any work done. You wrote a few poems. I wrote one. You are behind on final revisions for the novel and the book of poems, behind on your office work (two weeks to write the synonymies you do in thirteen hours), behind in your correspondence. Your desk is a holy mess. You always tended to work in this belated, procrastinating manner (I remember snowdrifts of uncorrected papers on your desk when you used to teach, and that was before we were married), and you know it. But it is more convenient to say that my moods, or my household interruptions, or my
something
is responsible.

Yes, I'm reeking with self-pity, my dear, as I plod through laundry and cleaning and cooking and bills and bank accounts and insurance and ordering books and theater tickets and keeping up with your correspondence as well as mine and running the errands and making the telephone calls. Yes, I seem to fuck them all up. Yes, I am filled with self-loathing as well as self-pity. Poor K., what did he ever do to deserve this? Of course he shares the burden, does his part, except that there are hundreds of little things he doesn't even think of, doesn't foresee, couldn't care less about if he did. But this daily business of living is a full-time job and has to be seen to.

We've got a conflict of life-styles here. I know that I work best when my life is cleared away, things in order, no bills or errands or laundry on my mind. So I do them. It's not easy when I'm also trying to drift along with your schedule instead of ignoring or fighting it, and am therefore up all night and sleeping all day. You, of course, also work best when things are in order, except it will never be you who orders them, by God.

I'm tired of all this, K. Tired of doing the things I actually love to do: cook, clean, etc. Tired of your constant criticism, tired of failing and feeling it myself
and
from your alternating condemnation and condescension. Tired of your god-like manner, all the while you're complaining that people cast you as an oracle. Tired of your equality-in-our-marriage talk, which I've always heartily seconded, silently
planning the dinner or how to get to the bank on time meanwhile. Tired of
your
moods, which you indulge in freely (mine, of course, are unfortunate—you can't help being sensitive to them, and they upset you and you can't get your work done). Tired of the way you come to a mutual project late, reluctantly, and then take it over completely. Tired and ashamed that I so pled my unworthiness before you last night, until you had to concede it—a little. My God! Has the fight been broken out of me completely? If so, then you, not meaning to, have succeeded where others, meaning to, have failed.

I like our home, our life together. It's the two of us I can't stand. I feel I'm giving more, far more, to this marriage than you are, and such self-pity combined with guilt that I'm still not giving
enough
: I feel, shall we say, uncomfortable. Oh, Christ, I'm tired of this letter, too. I'm tired of waiting for you. I'm tired of you.

I'm
going for a walk.

R.

V
ARIOUS
F
AILURES OF
M
E

6

“Jim A.” was a man with whom I tried—and failed—to have an affair, thinking, as so many women have, that such an affair would solve the difficulties in my marriage one way or the other. In my case, it was also a rebellion against any implicit (though denied) double standard in my marriage, and an attempt to “get with” the swinging morality of the sixties. God forbid I should be square, un-hip, puritanical, prudish. The “sexual revolution” which we now know never really occurred for women certainly wasn't going to leave me behind.

“Father James” was a Catholic priest who, oddly enough, was a close friend of my rather apostate Jewish family when I was a child. He served as a powerful surrogate for the father I had not known. Years later I realized that he had his own erotic reasons for loving to be around children—especially little girls. “Your onion skin” refers to a poem of K.'s from his first book;
¹
the refrain is “peeling, peeling the onion skin/down to the nothingness within.” The reference to “that memorable day in Pippin's” recalls a landmark conversation over Sunday brunch in a small neighborhood restaurant, during which I told K. that I had actually faked orgasm with him many times. I was convinced I was the only woman in the world sick enough to have done this.

27
November
1966 3:00
a.m. next morning

D
EAR
K.:

Well, one thing is for certain from now on—I'm never going to reread the previous letters before starting a new one. It's too depressing, and also makes me feel I have to “fill in” what happened since. I guess I got one good poem out of that last letter's crisis, though, “Satellite,”
²
and we survived. Survived not only the deadlines, and severe money
pressures, but also the Jim A. crisis. The week of almost solid talk we suffered through saved us from, I somehow know, really dangerous shoals. Yet even now, understanding each other's positions so much better, and having tried to be honest as much as one ever can be (which is bloody little), I still sense a treacherous undercurrent. About Jim perhaps, because I'm still, despite everything, strongly attracted to him, despite my own self-disgust and fear and plain irritation at the whole mess. Maybe it would have been easier if he and I had just had a toss in the hay before all this got started—layer over layer of emotion and meaningful glances. Christ. Then the whole thing might not occupy so much of my precious thought time, which really annoys the hell out of me. Except that that's a lie, too—I enjoy it.